Jon Atack is the author of A Piece of Blue Sky, one of the very best books on L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology. He has a new edition of the book for sale, and for more than a year on Saturdays he helped us sift through the legends, myths, and contested facts about Scientology that tend to get hashed and rehashed in books, articles, and especially on the Internet. He was kind enough to send us a new post.

Jon, we've wondered about the earliest group around L. Ron Hubbard when he published Dianetics, and where were the results of this research he had supposedly done before the book came out. As you point out, we thoroughly went through the book and were pretty surprised by its claims about how easily it would be to create Clears. And so we're very excited that you're taking a close look at that period and the claims Hubbard made for Clear and later "OT." Take it away!

JON: I spend very little time surfing the Internet. I find that researching my pieces for the Bunker uses every moment of my spare time. I did spend a little while in Jeff Hawkins' fascinating corner of the Bunker, last year, but I've finally peeked at the equally fascinating Blogging Dianetics series, with Vance Woodward, and was struck by this L. Ron Hubbard statement (as I have been several times before, in the - oh, no! - forty years since I first read it):